When Lynn Paolella’s two youngest children were born with a rare metabolic disorder called PKU, the only treatment was a lifetime spent avoiding most foods. Her kids couldn’t eat meat or fish or milk, pizza or mac and cheese. They couldn’t eat regular bread or pasta or eggs.

Still, she fed them as best she could: vegetables and special, low-protein formula and packaged food. But it felt more like deprivation. Her kids were always hungry.

“I couldn’t live with that,” said Paolella, who lives in Wayland.

In 2000, she and her husband, David, started a small company they named Cambrooke Foods after their children Cameron and Brooke, who have PKU. Cambrooke has since grown into the world’s largest company providing food for people with the disorder